12° Camera angle silicone wedge

Servo setup tool - Square arms

Description

Please note that this is a legacy product, that is no longer sold as a kit. Individual parts may still be available if they are still in stock in the shop. Product information only acts as a reference.

What’s new in the Tricopter V4;

You can now choose the RCExplorer F3FC Tricopter flight controller (with integrated Power Distribution). Designed based on all the feedback we’ve received since the release of the Naze32 frame. This frame has it all; A more powerful processor, 3A switching BEC with selectable 5/6/8V output, no need for a separate power distribution board, pressure sensor, current sensor, low noise gyro/accelerometer connected via SPI and so much more. Read all about it here.

Another huge leap in flight performance is the feedback enabled BMS210 servo. The flight controller now knows where the servo is at all times, which allows it to much more accurately control the tail. The F3FC frame has a dedicated feedback pad straight on the board for very easy hookup. All ESC’s also have surface mount pads straight on the board, which makes for a very clean build and saves a ton of space on the top of the frame.

The camera plate has been redesigned and improved. It is now made from 2mm thick matte 3K carbon fiber. This increases stiffness, which reduces vibrations as well as saves weight (more than 25% lighter). You can now easily mount RunCam2 and GoPro sized cameras.

After many requests the landing gear has now been made taller and with a wider contact area at the bottom. The sharp edge has also been removed. The new landing gear is also mounted with 4 zip-ties which absorbs more energy in a crash. As you will need more zip-ties for the build, the kit now comes with 2 bags (~50 pieces).
The Tricopter V4 is designed to be as light as possible without compromising strength or stiffness. It only weighs 201 grams including Flightcontroller, power distribution, arms, tilt mechanism, motor mounts, screws, landing gear and vibration dampened camera mount! Yet it’s stiffer and more precise than previous versions.

The Tricopter V4 is designed to be easy to build and repair. The landing gear and tilt mechanism are held on using zip-ties, just like in previous versions. These zip-ties acts as “mechanical fuses”, absorbing energy and protecting important pieces in a crash.

Tired of the how easily extruded carbon fiber booms crack and loose their torsion strength, I set out to find a better alternative. Many, many hours of searching I found a factory that could make 10x10mm carbon fiber square tubes to the specifications I was looking for. These woven carbon fiber square tube arms are incredibly stiff, strong and lightweight. The torsion (twisting) strength is unparalleled which results in a crisp and precise flying experience, even with high power setups. Unlike extruded carbon fiber arms, these arms can take abuse without cracking. They are also 33-40% lighter, have more room inside to run wires and are stiffer in all aspects. The kit includes 3 arms with predrilled 3mm holes, so you don’t have to drill it yourself.

The wire comes pre-bent (which saves a ton of time and frustration). This vibration dampening system was created specifically for the large flight envelope of the tricopter. The vibrations created by the motors and props spinning only has one way of reaching the camera, and that is down through the thin curved shaped wires. Since the camera plate is stiff, the whole camera tray has to vibrate for the camera to vibrate. With the heavy battery and camera mounted on the tray, a lot of energy is needed to get it moving. The thin and stiff piano wire has a high resonance frequency and low-frequency vibrations will have a hard time to travel down to the camera plate. The small amount of high-frequency vibrations that do make it down has so little energy that they are easily absorbed by the heavy battery and camera. Resulting in buttery smooth footage. The main benefit of this system compared to many soft vibration dampening solutions, is that it doesn’t move or wiggle during fast forward flight or a quick change of direction. This system you can whip around like a maniac and still get perfect video.

Just like the previous tricopter versions, this design is also foldable. This makes transportation easier, but it also help prevent damage in a crash. The arms simply fold back and absorb some of the energy. The arms are held in place by friction, which means that you don’t have to use a tool to fold or unfold, simply grab the arm and push or pull it.

The kit includes the new upgraded version of the tilt mechanism is made from fiberglass reinforced black Nylon which was forged in the fires of Mt. Doom, making it almost indestructible. (It’s the same plastic used by high-end propeller manufacturers). This tilt mechanism is designed to be as simple, precise, light (only 10.6g), durable and with as little air resistance as possible. The design features a spline directly integrated into the part. The recommended servo simply slides right in and gets tightened down by the same screw that is used as the pivot point. Simple, strong and easy to assemble. You can also use any servo with a maximum distance of 8mm from the bottom of the servo body to the bottom of the spline using the “attached servo horn” method, just like on the V2.5 build. (See build-videos on the tilt mechanism product page)

Some of you might remember my everlasting battle with manufacturing of the carbon fiber arms. There is a reason why most companies I’ve approached have declined to even try making them. 10x10mm woven square tubes are really difficult to make. Extruded tubes this size is no problem, but they really suck. The arms we sell now are fantastic when it comes to strength, weigh, stiffness and have no warp.

The problem is that the surface finish is almost impossible to get perfect. So far we’ve discarded large parts of batches due to these imperfections and it’s really not sustainable. We at least need to break even on the arms. That would mean either almost doubling the price or lowering the standards, or stop selling them altogether.

Right now the most reasonable thing seems to be lowering the cosmetic standards in our quality checks. To be clear; only the surface finish is effected. The structural integrity and function is unaffected and the arms will be just as strong as before. The difference is that you might get arms that are scratched, have small dimples, have a visible edge of the carbon or other cosmetic impurities. Again, this will not effect the function or performance of the arms.

Since you will now receive a lower quality product we have lowered the prices.

Other things you will need to get up in the air(Given that you have the electronics and parts mentioned above):
A RC Transmitter and receiver (Such as the FRsky Taranis). Make sure the receiver supports PPM or SBUS (or serial connection)
4S LiPo battery with a capacity of 2500-3700mAh. I personally fly on 4S 3200mAh Turnigy A-spec batteries most of the time. (I change the connector to XT60)

If you want to fly FPV:A video transmitter. I personally use the Immersion RC 600mW 5.8GHz (Most countries only allow up to 25mW if you don’t have a HAM licence).
A camera. I personally use a GoPro and fly through the video output on that. You can also use security type camera such as the HS1177.
A viewing device, a screen or video goggles. I personally use the Fatshark attitude HD, but there are much cheaper options.
A video receiver. Mine is built into the goggles. You might need a standalone receiver. Make sure it operates on the same frequency bands as the video transmitter.
Antennas, I use the Immersion RC Spironets

This kit requires an understanding of electronics, proficient skill in soldering and piloting skill. To fly multirotors, based on cleanflight/betaflight and similar, you will need to give constant stick input. The copter will not fly on its own (autonomously) nor will not hold its position in the air in standard configuration. It’s designed to give the best flight experience possible with great flying characteristics. A flight controller of the type this multirotor is using is designed to be felt as little as possible, this in order to let the pilot feel exactly what the copter is doing and to allow for precise flying without the feeling of fighting the flightcontroller.

Although tough, the tricopter is not designed as a beginner platform, but to provide the absolute best flight characteristics and performance. It’s possible to learn to fly on it, but I would recommend that you learn on a smaller platform such as the Eflite Inductrix or on a simulator before taking on a multirotor like this.

It is possible to connect a GPS to this platform, but functionality in the firmware is still under development. It is not a turnkey solution and it will not perform like a DJI Phantom. Autonomous flight is possible but it will require a lot of research, tuning and time to get it to work well.

Want to make your own? That’s correct, You can download the design files for free. Even if you don’t have the money to support me, I still want you to be able to enjoy the hobby by making it yourself. Please enjoy and share this great hobby with someone. Click here for the download page.

Preconfigured CleanFlight setup

Older software:

Update : To get the best performance download the newest version of Triflight from here: https://github.com/lkaino/Triflight/releases).
The setup procedure is pretty similar to the one described in the setup video but things will look a bit different as you now will be using the Betaflight configurator instead of Cleanflight.

Watch this great step by step build and setup video by Andy RC. It shows how to set up the newer betaflight based Triflight version 0.7 beta 2.
Skip to 21:10 for the transmitter (Taranis) setup
22:23 – Triflight 0.7 Beta
30:02 – Tail Tune 1
31:29 – Tail Tune 2

Warning! This setup is intended to be used with the recommended electronics for the tricopter. Especially important is using SimonK/BLHeli flashed ESC’s and a digital servo capable of 250Hz update rate (Such as the BMS-210MH) Using an analog servo with this setup file will result in a burnt servo!

The tricopter will fly better with the propellers mounted the following (Copter seen from above): left – CCW, right – CW, tail – CCW. This will help in coordinated turns. It’s not a big deal if front motors are swapped, with left rotating CW and right CCW. It will only mean that you will be fighting it a bit more with stick inputs in the turns. However the CCW rotation of the tail motor is absolutely critical for proper triflight behavior. It will not fly well with the CW tail motor.

Installation: Download the triflight_F3FC.hex file (This hex is made for the F3FC flightcontroller, To use another flightcontroller download the correct hex for your board here). Flash it to your board with the cleanflight-configurator as usual, but make sure to tick “full chip erase” box.

If you’re using a windows machine you will need to install the Zadig program and convert the driver (See setup video for more info)

Configuration: Setup your receiver (midpoints around 1500, min as close to 1000 from above as possible, max as close to 2000 from below as possible, also make sure to setup the deadband and yaw_deadband, as well as the board orientation (for integrated tricopter frame set pitch adjustment to 180), failsafe and any other features you would like to use. Next setup any mode switches you might want to use and I recommend setting the arm function to a switch. Calibrate the accelerometer on the flat surface (Mini Tricopter will need to have the cage sticking out over the table to be flat). Don’t forget to calibrate your ESCs also.

The tricopter requires some configuration related to the tail servo. The most important is servo midpoint and endpoint adjustments. All the algorithms added for more stable and precise yaw control rely on the correct servo configuration, so follow the steps below with the most accuracy possible. It is highly recommended to use the Servo setup tool, which is included in the newer kits.

Go to the Modes tab and setup a switch to activate the “Tail tune”. Hit save after you’re done.

Make sure your tricopter is level on the roll axis. If you have calibrated your accelerometer on the level surface already, make sure it shows zero roll.
You will need to connect the battery or some other source of flight power to your tricopter to continue, so make sure the propellers are off.

Enter the tail tune mode while the copter is disarmed. Move the aileron stick right to setup the right direction throw of the tail. Use the yaw stick to tune the trow until the angle is precisely 40° (use the Servo setup tool). Move the aileron stick to the left and repeat. Then move the elevator stick up to set the midpoint of the servo. The tail needs to be level in relation to the tricopter frame at this point (use the Servo setup tool). Lastly move the elevator stick down. If the servo feedback wire has been connected the tail will now move back and forth a couple of times to measure and save the servo speed value. After the value is saved the beeper will sound the completed tone sequence. If no feedback wire is attached the completed tone sequence will sound and a virtual servo model will be used (which obviously isn’t as good as the real thing)

You can do the setup using a protractor, but it’s less accurate and more difficult to do. You’re looking for the values for 50 (min), 90 (mid) and 130 (max) degrees from the horizon.

Go to the CLI tab and paste the following to get the correct PIDs for the Tricopter V4 running the stock electronics kit

If you are running any other setup you will need to tune the PID’s and other parameters yourself.

You’re almost done!. Mount the propellers and go outside. We’re now going to do an inflight calibration of the thrust factor value. Put the copter into a hover.
Switch to TAILTUNE mode. You will hear a beeping battern from buzzer as a confirmation.
Keep the copter in hover. The tuning process is only active when you don’t touch the pitch & roll & yaw sticks. You can of course use the sticks to keep the copter in place, the tuning process will continue when you release the sticks. FW will do beeps during the tuning (1 beep = decrease the ratio, 2 beeps = increase). Once tuning is done, you will hear same beeping pattern as when you first activated the tail tune mode, it will repeat every 2 seconds. Land and disarm. Do not turn off the tail tune until after you have disarmed or the values might not save.

You’re done! Enjoy your first flight.

73 reviews for Tricopter V4 kit [No longer sold as kit]

Rated 5 out of 5

Christophe76 (verified owner)–16 September, 2014

Bonjour,
I Want David!!!

Rated 5 out of 5

Christophe76 (verified owner)–16 September, 2014

David,
I would use my Mobius on V3, but the strap is not intended for this type of camera !!
An idea you have?
Christophe.

david –17 September, 2014

You can very easily just use velcro or double sided tape to mount the mobius. It’s smaller and lighter than the GoPro. There is tons of space behind the camera mount so the mobius will fit without any issue.

Rated 5 out of 5

Christophe76 (verified owner)–17 September, 2014

hello,
A big thank you, David
I hope that those that are expressed on the V3 and wants to buy one will be happy to buy, even without pre-order as soon as it came out.
Christophe.

Rated 5 out of 5

Christophe76 (verified owner)–1 October, 2014

Hello, David
It there no information on sending the order and a tracking number.
Sincerely, Christophe

Rated 5 out of 5

dinuc (verified owner)–16 October, 2014

Beautiful kit

Rated 5 out of 5

American F3A –24 October, 2014

David,

Can you please send me the plans fot the tilt mechanism and the landing gear please?

Is it possible that you make a version that is compatible with DT750 motors and TGY-306G servo?
I got those when building your earlier version of tricopters, and it would great if I can still use it with this kit.

Tack!

david –12 November, 2014

Sweden.
The DT750’s fit if you fiddle around with it abit 🙂
Haven’t tried the TGY-306G servo, but with minor modifications it should fit as well

Rated 5 out of 5

Terje (verified owner)–1 December, 2014

Nice packaged kit with really high quality parts that fit together perfectly.

Rated 5 out of 5

kitesteez (verified owner)–18 December, 2014

great kit, great tutorials. right now using the extra tilt mech I bought on my existing 230mm custom tri. Nice to have a legit tilt mech now.

Rated 5 out of 5

ethan seraio –20 December, 2014

does this kit includes the motor?
can it be shipped to the Philippines?
BTW i like your videos in youtube and thank you for the awesome reviews

RCExplorer – David –20 December, 2014

We ship pretty much world-wide, so if your can find your country in the drop-down menu when you enter your shipping address, we ship there 🙂

The 1200kV setup cuts the air better, desends straight down better and is faster. But it flies for around a minute less. The higher RPM’s also makes balancing the props more critical. Other than that they are pretty similar 🙂

Rated 5 out of 5

Michael (verified owner)–30 December, 2014

Dave,

I love my kit and your videos and inspiration. Just a heads up the the 4s setup alternate motor “Turnigy SK3” is not rated for 4s, at least according to hobbyking. Have you used those motors with 4s?

RCExplorer – David –30 December, 2014

I have no clue why hobbyking rates it as a 2-3s motor. The voltage doesn’t really matter, only the current rating. The motor doesn’t really care about the voltage, as long as it’s not higher than what the isolation in the windings can take (which is upwards of 100V, so not really applicable in this instance) The heat generated in the motor is what is what is important and that is decided by the I^2*R law. I is the current being pumped through the motor, the R the resistance in the winding (which is a constant in this case). So The current times the Current times the resistance is how much heat that is generated in the motor. The motor can only dissipate a certain amount of heat (which is usually directly related to the size/mass of the motor). That is why the current rating is so important. The voltage rating is almost irrelevant. As long as you don’t draw more than the current rating you’re good. (There are some more things that the current rating also is good for, such as saturation of the motor core and such, but that is for another day :))

Short answer is yes I’ve tried them and they work well 🙂

Rated 5 out of 5

danno242000 (verified owner)–11 January, 2015

Love it ! Built a 4s version with tiger motors and the naze32 flightcontroller and it flies great, so much fun ! Camera-/Batterytray works awesome, no jello at all. Really easy to build, especially with the help of Davids Video. Only tricky part was the wiring, there is not much space between the centerplates and if you don’t pay attention, the wires could rub on the side of the plates and could get cut, which happens to me, but it was easy to fix.
I just ordered my second kit, going to build a gimbal version. One of the members in this forum (Terje) designed a gimbal for the v3 kit which looks awesome, i have to try it out. You can find his plans on thingiverse and 3d print it. just search for motorpixie on google or youtube to find it…

RCExplorer – David –12 January, 2015

Glad you like your copter 🙂 Hope you’ll have many fun adventures with it

Rated 5 out of 5

Codie –14 January, 2015

This kit looks amazing! I am a beginner in the world of Rc, I got a quad for christmas (cheap walmart kind) and I just bought a hubsan x4 107d. I have been doing a lot of research (mostly watching youtube) and I think I have a basic understanding on how to build a multi rotor ( with the help of the build video), although I have never built anything RC before. I just would like to know if you would reccomend me to go ahead and look at buying this, or wait until I gain more experience in RC..
Any response would be great!! And sorry if this is not a place for questions…
P.S, does you know if the h107d transmitter is compatible with anything else (clueless..)

Rated 5 out of 5

Diego –15 January, 2015

Hi David, great Kit. Just one question, would this SunnySky-X2216-1100KV-Brushless-Motor fit well with the default Setup instead of the NTM? Would it perform better?

Rated 5 out of 5

Terje (verified owner)–15 January, 2015

Hi Diego, the SunnySky 2216 110Kv has a stop set collar on the shaft which makes it unsuited for use unless you replace the shaft with one that uses a C locking ring (google translate?) instead.

This kit is AMAZING. The kit should be 200 bucks for what it is.
Cons; 1.The tilt mechanism is a little too fragile. Broke two already, and I’m waiting for the new one.
Pros; 1. Other than the tilt mech, the durability is amazing!
2. Camera/batt tray is very effective.
3. Parts aren’t ridiculously expensive like E-Flite.
4. Sharp look.
5. Sipped very quickly for me being in the US.

Rated 5 out of 5

Jussi Valkonen (verified owner)–23 January, 2015

I’m in the process of building the recommended 4S setup with the 900 kV NTM 28-30S motors and 9x5E Multistar props. This is my first multicopter and what confuses me is the prop installation. The props without any of the included adapters is way too loose, with the larger adapter it is still somewhat loose and the smaller one doesn’t fit.
1) Are the props supposed to fit nice and tight over the prop mount and if no, how much tolerance should there roughly be between the shaft diameter and the prop adapter inner diameter?
2) If there is supposed to be some tolerance between the two diameters then how do you guarantee the prop is centered and doesn’t produce vibrations?
I don’t have a caliper to get measures but by highly accurate eyballing I’d say the difference is somewhere around a millimeter. So do I need to get more prop adapters or maybe drill the too small ones to be a snug fit?

RCExplorer – David –26 January, 2015

The smaller spacer fits, it’s just really tight 🙂

Rated 5 out of 5

NicolaiVdS –23 January, 2015

What length of male to male servo wires should i get ? Because the link in the parts list is not working

Great kit, and awesome list of parts, you put together a great BOM (bill of materials) for a complete build. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get in early enough to get a signature addition, but was happy to receive an upgraded tilt mechanism. The carbon fiber booms are amazing! Seriously I don’t know how you can sell them so cheaply, they are worth the kit price by themselves. You are getting these from a PCB manufacturer, correct? Would be easy to integrate a power distribution board in one of the boards, but I just made my own connector, works great, and is very clean. Love the product, and love what you’ve done for the hobby.

Rated 5 out of 5

Hugo Assis (verified owner)–27 January, 2015

Hey David!
I’m finally going to buy the kit, but I’m afraid to break it during transport. I’m from Brazil and a friend who lives in France will receive your order and bring it to me. Could you make a more robust packaging to prevent this from happening? I’m a big fan of yours! Keep up the good work, I am happy to contribute to it 🙂

RCExplorer – David –28 January, 2015

I’ve shipped a couple to brazil before without any problem. The box is pretty sturdy 🙂

Rated 5 out of 5

Hugo Assis (verified owner)–27 January, 2015

And How long for it to be delivered in france? 😀

RCExplorer – David –28 January, 2015

Shouldn’t take more than a week.

Rated 5 out of 5

Hugo Assis (verified owner)–27 January, 2015

David! Me again!
What’s the size of the box? How long does it take to ship it to France? thx 😀

RCExplorer – David –28 January, 2015

The box is 335x220x55mm

Rated 5 out of 5

Plano Chad (verified owner)–5 February, 2015

I’ve been flying my Tri-Copter V3 for about two weeks now. It’s a blast to fly and David really makes building it up very easy with his step by step YouTube video. His video on the KK2 board is exceptional as well and the forum page of his website will answer just about any other question you might have along the way. This was my first multi-rotor to fly and certainly my first one to build. I’ve now ordered a second kit to build up a spare.

Rated 5 out of 5

sdemaio (verified owner)–19 February, 2015

I’m not going to brag too too much as it’s not actually in my hands yet, but David shipped this from Sweden late in the afternoon on the 17th and it arrived in the us early in the afternoon on the 18th. I’m used to waiting at least a week and a half for anything to make it into the country that is shipped from another country. 19 hours is pretty remarkable. Sweden (and David) has got their stuff together…

Rated 5 out of 5

Peter (verified owner)–20 February, 2015

I was really surprised when the kit arrived yesterday 🙂 now im waiting for the electronics to arrive. I opened it and the parts just look amazing! My SJ4000 also fits perfectly on the camera mount. I’m so happy to have this kit 🙂

Hi I am a beginner and I was wondering if this is good for me with all electronics can it be under 150$

Rated 5 out of 5

Don (verified owner)–8 March, 2015

Hi David,

I plan on using the Afro ESC 30Amp (SimonK Firmware). Do I need to buy a ESC programming tool or may it be used standard as it comes.

Thanks

Rated 4 out of 5

Dynotime –9 March, 2015

David been following you on the Test Flight site. I have a few Questions. 1. How big is your Tri 600MM or more
2. Do you have the Entire package to send out?
Or a list of each item and were to get the items.

3 the Flight controller and how to set it up i am just retired and i am not up to date on down loading and such. I would not be able to program with out help.

4 I would really like to build my own but if it is to hard to program i just might have to buy a Q500 or some other off the shelf quad, But i really want a tri, with return to home, video and one that will hold at alt. Thanks and sorry if i am asking to many questions..

Rated 4 out of 5

Dynotime –10 March, 2015

Follow up Questions Sorry, I really would like the Tri to be able to fly for a 30 min flight Plan. I know this might be hard to do. But I need to film Building and do not want to have to land every 10 min or so. I also do not know how you would size the props? I like many others are new to this except I have flown Coax and Nano QX for quite a long time. Now it is time to start with Cam’s. I have a Spectrum DX8 Radio now, would I need another Radio. So many questions just hard to find the answers. Thanks Dave or any one that can help, greg at [email protected]

Rated 5 out of 5

RCExplorer – David –10 March, 2015

Not sure if the Tricopter is the right platform for this job, if you plan on flying for 30 minutes it’s going to have to be pretty slow and steady flight, so the tricopter flight characteristics wouldn’t really come through. Search for endurance quadcopter on google and you’ll find plenty of good stuff, like this: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2124892

Been loving flying a 2.5 tri for the last couple of seasons, but I’d like something smaller without sacrificing to much of the smooth “swooshy” camera movement.

I haven’t seen too many in-flight videos from the v3 yet. How does the image stability compare with the longer arm 2.5? Any recommendations for fc settings on APM 2.5?

Thanks for all your good work,
TW

Rated 5 out of 5

Thomas (verified owner)–15 April, 2015

Guys,
What do you prefer normal HK NTM motors or T-Motors?

Rated 5 out of 5

Agent CAL –9 May, 2015

I really love the Tricopter! The tricopter gets so good video in my opinion as far as stability goes, and the way it combines all the movements is priceless. As getting something along with a gimbal would be more expensive, I personally think this gets the best video possible without an expensive gimbal system. Not only that, but it’s fast, performs well, and is fun to fly. Also, folding booms!

Rated 5 out of 5

razor02097 (verified owner)–12 May, 2015

This is a great kit at a great price very high quality! A complete frame right down to the zip ties! The shipping is really fast too, received it here in the USA in just a week! I can’t wait to put it all together!

Rated 5 out of 5

Ken (verified owner)–13 May, 2015

Lovin my Tricopter. Great kit!! Thanks David for all your hard work. Just ordered the new Power Distribution frame. Can wait!!!

Rated 5 out of 5

Reece (verified owner)–15 May, 2015

Awesome quality frame. Outstandingly light, strong and neat looking. Not only that, knowing that I’m helping support David and this awesome hobby, making with work every penny.

Many thanks for the product, will be buying more from you!

Rated 5 out of 5

psiegel –2 June, 2015

I am wondering if this is an easy frame to construct. Is it better than the Talon frame on hobby king? If I buy this frame it will be my first time making a tricopter.

Rated 5 out of 5

danno242000 (verified owner)–3 June, 2015

@psiegel: i don´t know the talon frame but i have a tri v3: you can´t go wrong with this frame,
very good build quality, good looking, easy to build especially if you go with the pdb and naze32 options (you will need to solder though). in my mind just plain awesome, a must buy!

Rated 5 out of 5

Mohamed (verified owner)–17 June, 2015

How long does it take to restock

Rated 5 out of 5

jonni (verified owner)–27 July, 2015

Awesome kit! Used it to build my first multicopter and she flies great!

Rated 5 out of 5

Nicolas (verified owner)–6 August, 2015

Almost finished with my build incl. Naze & PDB options. Already the packaging is a joy – if the box was white it would almost be Apple perfection.
The parts a great quality and everything is so well thought out… Except one thing: The hole in the Naze plate for the wiring is way to small and too close to the header pins. I soldered the pins at an angle (not enough of an angle it turns out) and use PPM, but the few wires coming through the hole block the lower row of pins. Had I known this before I would have used straight pins or mounted the angled ones so they point the opposite side. Would have been much easier and so much cleaner.

Rated 5 out of 5

ACarty12 (verified owner)–10 August, 2015

hi david, love the tricopter v3.
Question, will the lumenier FX2216-11 900kv V2 motors work well with this frame

RCExplorer – David –14 August, 2015

Yep those would work great

Rated 5 out of 5

agentdev (verified owner)–19 September, 2015

This is a fantastic kit! Even with so many options out there for multi-rotors David’s design stands high above the competition. The kit combines quality materials, outstanding design and stable flight characteristics when combined with quality motors and balanced props. I opted to use Sunnysky V series 2216 KV900 motors paired with Velotech Magic SimonK 30A ESCs (no BEC). Tied to the Naze32 and power distribution frames this results in excellent flight times on 4S & 9×5 HQ props. I have flight times of over 15 minutes and have yet to go much lower than 3.8V on 20C 3000mah 4S lipos.

I highly recommend this for everything from versatile and reliable FPV platforms to LOS fun-fliers!

Rated 5 out of 5

martyn (verified owner)–11 October, 2015

Fantastic kit, paired mine with Turnigy Multistar 2216-KV800 motors and GWS 9×5 3 blade slowfly props I had picked up while building the Tricopter V2.5 (which was abandoned after ordering almost all the parts (no bat/props)).

Need to work out why vbat on just beeps continuously, got solid main rail > Vbat connection, but as soon as I enable vbat monitoring the buzzer goes mental.

Rated 5 out of 5

villalji (verified owner)–12 October, 2015

Hi David, great work on this page, I’ve been following you since the early days of Flitetest and it’s not the same without you…
I finally ordered your kit with Naze and BEC, and I plan to use NTM 2830/900kv with 30A Afro ESC, I hope this is a right choice. A couple of years back I build one of your V2 Tricopters with simonk-flashed F30s, DTM 800kv motors and multiwii 328p board and still flies strong, I’m adding now BT and GPS to that baby just to have some fun!
I have another question (the first one is on whether my choice of motors and ESC is OK): do you think I can adapt the camera support to use a Sony Action Cam? do you know of anyone that managed to?
Greetings from Berlin!

Rated 5 out of 5

hertz (verified owner)–16 October, 2015

Awesome kit!
Running it with T-Motor 2216 900kV v2.0, but wondering, can I use the DT750s rewound for ~900kV?

Rated 5 out of 5

Don (verified owner)–30 October, 2015

Hi David,

I got the V3 kit a while ago. Been troubling shooting but just can’t win with this one. The tail rotor on my lifts faster than the other two rotors. I have checked center of gravity. Does this in both normal take off and auto level.I have set all settings to the recommended settings for the build type.

Hi David, maybe I have an idea for improvement on your Tricopter V4. The battery tray including the innovative pianowire dampening solution is one of the most unique features of the Tricopter, but it has a weakness point in my point of view. The vibrations from the motors and blades do have an alternative way of traveling throughout the thick and inflexible battery wires. This may could be improved by making the bottom plate as a PDB and use the pianowires as powerleads :).Not sure about the diameter, resistance and maximum elextrical load the may can carry, but at least two on each side could be used in parallel. What do you think?

RCExplorer – David –18 August, 2016

Interesting idea, should be doable. would love to see some pictures if you try it! 😀

Rated 4 out of 5

RCLover –14 August, 2016

Hey I was wondering what is a good transmitter to get under 100 for tricopter v4

RCExplorer – David –18 August, 2016

Turnigy 9Xr

Rated 5 out of 5

ejwolski (verified owner)–25 August, 2016

Awesome! It flies great and, more importantly, looks cool too! 🙂

Rated 4 out of 5

Bojan –29 August, 2016

Hello! In inflight tune, to save the settings it is enough just to land an dissarm? The is no need to pull both sticks down and out? Or was that in triflight 0.4?

Rated 5 out of 5

obrenton –23 October, 2016

Hello David!!!!!
What kind of reciever and transmitter would work good for this kit on a budget? I’m new to the hobby and I’m interested in the kit and getting to tricopters so any other tips you can give me would be great!!!! Thank you!!!!